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There should not be so much anger six years after my divorce. There should not be so much anger ever.

I’ve been divorced for six years. My ex-wife is “happily” remarried and yet still somehow furious with me. I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work. But I think you get over your ex and move on. That’s the path to healing. The other, the obsessive hate, is corrosive to everything and everyone around you. Unfortunately my kids live in that environment 70% of the time. The good news is they have come out okay. At 13 and 15 I find them charming, well-balanced, and loving kids. My ex, not so much.

There’s some sort of power and control going on here, even now. She wants to know what companies I’m applying to? She wants to make sure I don’t try to skip out on the AG’s payments when I get my new job?

A great example of the game she’s still playing happened last week.

I am in the process of applying for a lot of jobs these days. And recently, with a financial institution, they let me know a credit check would be part of the final approval of me as an employee. Well, since my ex-wife sent my ass up river to the Attorney General’s office there’s a nifty little red flag on my credit report that says I’m a deadbeat dad. (Thanks ex, that’s really helpful.)

No, generally the AG’s office is reserved for deadbeat dads. Here’s a few definitions of deadbeat dads.

Skip out on financial responsibility for their kids

Hide money to keep from paying appropriate child support

Move away from their kids to keep from paying or being emotionally available

Refuses to take responsibility for their kids, financially, emotionally, physically.

I’m none of these things. Here’s what happened. I was working for a small business. The small business lost their main client. I lost my income. I told my ex-wife I would be getting behind while we looked for new clients. She waited exactly two months before filing against me with the AG’s office. Somewhere, somehow, she believed she was working in the best interest of her kids.

I had been talking to a friend who worked for the AG’s office (still does) at that time. I told her, “They do not provide the service you are thinking of. We should work it out between us. Bringing them in is only going to complicate things.” She filed anyway.

Today the AG’s office has a lien against me for the child support payments I missed during my period of unemployment. I asked my ex at that time, “Do you think I’m hiding income from you?” “No,” she replied. “Do you think I’m not looking for a job as hard as I can?” “No,” she said. But somewhere in her “still angry” brain she felt justified at turning me over to a glorified collections agency. And all hell broke loose at that time. Here’s the kicker: she knew the AG’s office would severely fuck with me and she did it anyway.

Did she get her money any sooner? No, because, as I’ve told her repeatedly, if there’s no money coming in there’s no money for either of us. She seems to understand this, but it makes her furious. Anyway, jump forward to last week and this financial institution I’m trying to land a job with. I had to ask my ex wife to write me a note saying I’m a good dad, and explaining that the lien is simply a financial issue we are dealing with together. Wow, that made me feel like I was getting a permission slip in kindergarten.

There’s so much anger coming from her side that this latest move felt normal. I mean, why would she want to give me anything that makes it easier for me?

But it gets better.

As she agreed to write the letter, she also asked to know the firm I was applying with so she could write it specifically to them. I was confused. “Can’t you just write me a “to whom it may concern” letter?” Her new husband said it would carry more weight if it was written specifically to the employer. “Great,” I said. “Then I need three more letters.” And she produced them.

There’s some sort of power and control going on here, even now. She wants to know what companies I’m applying to? She wants to make sure I don’t try to skip out on the AG’s payments when I get my new job? More likely she’s just being mean and finding a way to stay in control. And she is in control. But now each day I’m going to ask her for more letters. And she will write them. I guess this will continue until either 1. I have a new job, or 2. she gives up control and writes me the “to whom” letter.

There’s so much anger coming from her side that this latest move felt normal. I mean, why would she want to give me anything that makes it easier for me? And how better to keep on top of me than to require a letter of release for each potential employer.

Oh the joys of a power-hungry ex-wife. Blessings on her. I hope someday she forgives me so she can turn around and finally forgive herself for deciding to exit our marriage.

I will never see eye to eye with my ex-wife. She turned my late-payer ass over to the collection agency of the state, and all hell has broken loose in my life ever since. There really is no forgive and forget in that situation. It was NOT “in the best interest of the children.” It was not even in the best interest of my ex-wife, but if you spoke with her today, I’m sure she’d disagree.

See I WAS behind. But that was due to employment, not willingness to pay. And since then, I’ve paid her 1/3 or 1/2 of every dollar I’ve made. But the AG’s office of the state of Texas still has a whopping lien on my ass. I can’t get a used car, I can’t rent an apartment, set up new phone service, nothing. I’m not only a deadbeat dad in the eyes of the state, but I’m a 400 or less on my credit score. See how far that will take you.

Somehow, I’m still negotiating just taking the AG’s boot of my neck. The good news is I’m negotiating with my ex-wife’s new husband. He sees things in a more business light. Still he too is convinced that as an accounting system, the AG’s office is fine to have in our relationship. I disagree, but it’s not up to me. My ex-wife holds all the keys. And that’s how she wanted it. She grabbed the power stroke by putting the AG’s office on her side and against me. Call them up for any information and you quickly get the idea that as a non-custodial parent you are a lesser citizen. In fact, you wouldn’t be contacting them if there wasn’t an issue. And if there’s an issue the non-custodial parent is the only party that could be in the wrong. Simply put, according to the AG’s office, you owe her this money. It is a debt. What are you going to do today, how much money can we have out of your checking account today, to take care of it.

So I have to begin seeking serenity with myself. I have to forgive myself for the job loss, the employment struggles that are so common in our current economy. I have to give myself a break first, even if the AG’s office won’t.

I’m hopeful that my ex-wife’s husband can be a man about the situation and realise ONE MAJOR FACT: I cannot, am not, will not, ask for relief from the money I owe my ex-wife in back child support. That’s the law. There is no need for the AG’s office to be involved unless the dad is trying to skip out on his obligations. I am not. There is no need for the AG’s office unless the dad is hard to track, bill, or find. I am not.

I cannot get satisfaction from her new husband either. He sees the AG’s office as a convenient accounting department for the rest of our contract. That’s bullshit, and he’s spouting her rhetoric, but again, the healing is up to me. Here’s what I can do.

Pay 1/3 of every dollar I make to my ex-wife until my kids both turn 18.

Keep seeing gainful employment that would put a nice cash flow system in place for everyone.

Ask for the removal of the AG’s lien.

The outcome is not up to me. I am responsible for my actions. I am responsible for nailing one of the next three job interviews. I am responsible to explaining to the potential employer that contrary to my credit report, I am NOT A DEAD BEAT DAD. (That’s a bit of a harder sell, but I don’t think we’re going to get relief any time soon.)

I may not reach serenity with my ex-wife and her new husband ever. That’s okay. The serenity is within me. I am doing, have done, and will do the best I can to support my kids and keep my relationship to them above the fray my ex continues to keep seething around us. The AG’s office is not your friend. If you sick the AG’s office on your ex I sincerely hope you are doing it as a last resort.

She was living with another man when we started having lunches. She started dating me before telling me or him of the other person. Along the way, that summer, she shut down our relationship so she could go “finish up” with him. She called me about six weeks later.

That opening volley should have been a red flag. But I was smitten. She was/is very pretty. I was very lonely. We hooked up soon after she moved out and she moved in with me in a matter of weeks. She made a very sensible move. She let go of the man who was unlikely to ever give her a child, something she had desperately begun to think about, and she found a man of means who was also ready for kids. Bingo.

There were a couple of wrinkles in her fantasy, however. 1. I did not make enough money to support a stay-at-home mom in the neighborhood we were committed to raising our children. 2. I suffered from occasional bouts of depression. She did too, but that’s another story all together.

So there we were, heading towards kids with some drastic changes to make. I was playing in a band, working for myself, and living in a condo that was paid for but not big enough to raise a family. What she needed was for me to get a real job, quit the band, and buy a house that could support our desired 2 kids in the neighborhood with the good schools. I caught the vision to. And so that’s what we did. I quit the band, got a full-time job, and we moved from my condo to a house in the “good schools” neighborhood. Of course we were 5 – 6 years ahead of needing those good schools, but hey, we were kids, we were in love, we were becoming parents.

So time goes along for a bit, we have two kids, a boy and then a girl, and we start having the frictions that married-with-children couples do. And a lot of that trouble had to do with money. I didn’t really think of it at the time, because we had decided to have her stay home with the kids as much as possible, while I continued the “big job” pursuit. While things went okay, the job market after 9-11 was awful. Our boat was taking on water. We spent most of the cash from the sale of the condo, and we were down to bare bones on our mortgage and house repairs.

It was about this time, and for some of those reasons, that I started a major slide into overwhelm, otherwise known as major depression. Not only was I responsible for an entire little family now, and a house payment, I also had lost my self-employment opportunity when the real estate market shut down after 9-11. Everybody had it hard, I get that, but somehow we didn’t join together as a team. Somehow we grew apart and the plan was for me to work, and work harder at finding work, and for her to … Well, we weren’t really sure what she was going to do. She didn’t know what she “wanted” to do, so I was committed to letting her fish around and figure it out. Meanwhile, our finances are swirling down the drain. But I never was one for being a stickler around money.

About the time things got really hard, she began to take lunches with a co-worker from a new group she was consulting with. Of course, I had no idea she was doing lunch with anyone. I stumbled upon a series of emails between them one afternoon while I was de-spamming our communal computer. BOOM. I was punched in the dick. She was revealing her deepest secrets, her concerns for my depression, her loneliness, and even her own inner struggles about being married to someone with depression.

I remember she came home with the kids and tried to talk to me about the evening plans. I was almost incoherent. It might have been easy to chalk that up to my struggles with depression, but this was different. Somewhere along the way she had taken out our personal love story and begun sharing it with another man. She was introducing him to the free coffee at our neighborhood library. She was doing lunches with a younger man just when her actual man needed her the most.

She came clean at this point. Not at doing anything wrong, but in acknowledging how this behavior might hurt me. She agreed to never do it again, and to end the “relationship” with this other man. But the damage had been done. She’d broken our sacred trust. And I am not sure if I ever felt 100% secure in my relationship after that. When sex went on hiatus, I remember wondering if she were seeing another man on the side, this time with physical comforts as well as mental comforts. I don’t think that was ever the case, but I’m not 100% sure.

Once the infidelity happens, even if it’s only emotional, the trust suffers. The odd thing, however, is how she made our “trust” an issue that I was mostly responsible for damaging. The “trust” issues seemed to all be about me. Not us? Our therapy sessions were less than productive as we searched for answers to MY depression and MY trust issues. She was the “okay” one.

Today, it’s easier to see how the entire relationship had been based on half-truths and omissions. I don’t have any regrets, at this point, because I look at our kids and I know we did the best we could. The best we could, however was less than 100% from her. At the moment when your partner is suffering and in need of your comfort, that is not the time to begin a “friendship” with a new person from work. A woman, maybe, but a handsome man?

I have learned a lot about trust and honesty in my life. My first and second marriages have taught me many things. I know that I will not tolerate infidelity, emotional or physical, and that TRUST is an issue that is shared. We had a trust issue in our marriage. While she was actually out doing something untrustworthy, I was the one being attacked. Perhaps the attack was the only defense she could come up with, for the way she was feeling inside.

She knew the moment I spoke of it, that afternoon when I found the email, that she had betrayed me. She never fully apologized for it. She said she wouldn’t do it again. That was as good as it ever got between us. I think that fracture is what led me towards divorce once it was offered. While I fought against the divorce, when I saw what I was up against, I gave in and complied. I guess I did the same thing at the beginning of our relationship when I first heard about the other man she was living with.

Things would be very different in my life had I walked away. I did not.

I’m writing this because I want you to know the divorce was not my idea. I did not choose to walk out the door to the house for the last time, I was asked to leave. While this may not mean much to you now that you are older, when you were 5 and 7, it was a big deal. And I couldn’t help but feel sad when I could not tell you the truth. It was not “our” idea. The divorce was against my wishes.

Today, it’s fine. We’re all friends. But back then, back when you were such vulnerable little kids, it was heartbreaking. I’m not saying we should’ve stayed together. As you could not have been aware, things were tough, things were unhappy, things were no longer joyful, more we had moved into a survival marriage. I agree, today, that’s no place to be. So in many ways I thank your mom for the divorce, but when it was taking place, I fought her, I fought for you guys, I fought to keep us together.

Of course, I can’t really come out and tell you this today, either. I mean, I don’t want to damage your relationship with your mom. And, as they say, it’s water under the bridge. So why mention it?

The action of leaving the marriage was devastating to all of us. And one person made that decision and enacted the next path before we had a chance to even understand what was happening. It was May of 2010 and by August of 2010 it would be official, final, signed and delivered. And I would no longer be there to tuck you into bed every night. I would be living with my sister and looking for a new job and a place to live, once I had that new job. You’re mom was only concerned with you guys and your happiness. And as she should’ve been, she was letting me fend for myself. But I have to tell you, it was rough out there. Back then, there were days I wasn’t sure I was going to make it.

Of course, you know I suffer from depression from time to time. And the divorce brought this illness up in spades. Perhaps you were given this “illness” as the reason we were no longer together, or the reason I was living with my sister and no longer in the house. But that’s not really the full truth. Depression had been a part of our lives before and was a struggle both parents weathered from time to time. So it was no reason for divorce. It was a symptom of the divorce. And the divorce triggered the biggest bout of depression I’d ever experienced. I was destroyed.

What I want to say to you today, as you are now 13 and 15 years old, is things broke up because your mom decided she needed to do something different. She chose divorce. I was fighting to stay together. Today we are better off for having gotten divorced. You are stronger, less dependant, and more resilient. We’ve gone through some tough times together. But I want you to know, regardless of how it felt, or what you were told, the divorce was NOT “our” idea, it was her idea and I was forced to go along with it. What you’ll learn as you enter into relationships of your own, it takes two people to have a relationship. When one person wants out, that’s it, game over.

This post is on my anonymous divorce blog. I still protect you and your mom from the full brunt of my anger. Why? Because it’s the right thing to do. Nothing would come of giving you this piece of information now. Perhaps when you are older it will be a conversation we can have. But today, I just wanted to record, for the future, that the divorce was not my idea. Ever.

I see why divorced fathers give up. It’s all stacked against you from the first. The very first time she utters the word “divorce”, a father is screwed. The more you fight, the more it’s all your fight. The less you fight, the more is taken away, little by little. It’s really a no-win. It’s not just the system, it’s those ingrained by the system. It’s the everyday attitudes, the automatic assumptions, the resistance a father gets from those situated in his child’s life, which typically are women (nurses, secretaries, administrative, teachers, etc.). It’s being marginalized while being smiled at, patronized so “the father will just go away satisfied so we can get on with business with the REAL parent”.

– Nathan S from a Father-centric FB Group.

Nathan is expressing the essence of divorce for dads. There is no WIN in divorce, and yet the courts are stacked in the favor of the mom from moment one. In Texas, where I live, 80% of the time the dad gets the SPO and the non-custodial parenting role.

SPO – standard possession order You will have your kids approximately 30% of the time. Every other weekend and one day on the off weeks.

Non-custodial parent She’s going to get the house and a nice child support check from you until each of your kids turns 18.

Parenting plan From that starting point you will be asked to design a parenting plan. But really it’s designing what 70% of your kids lives you are going to give up. You decide on Christmas, Thanksgiving, Birthdays, and the summer. Oh, the threatening summer. And there’s this little carrot they give to the non-custodial father, the summer MONTH. If you’ve got a day job it’s never going to happen, but they like to balance out the imbalance on the books by giving the dad a full month in the summer. This is very important if you live in a distant city. But for us trying to make lives WITH our kids we cannot afford to have them for a full month, nor could we afford the additional child care if we had to work.

The deck is stacked against dads. And once the dust settles from the divorce decisions and getting the decree in place, you’re going to have to look for shelter, outside the home you once knew, with a significantly reduced paycheck. My ex-wife gets $1,300 per month for our two kids, AND I pay the health insurance for both of them, adding another $400 – $600 per month. So take that $2,000 out of your take home pay, because it’s taken AFTER taxes, and then see what you have remaining for rent. How does a crappy apartment sound to you? While your wife and kids get to keep on living in the style they have become accustomed to.

Money troubles are part of the biggest issue for dads after divorce. Just making ends meet after the child support and healthcare have been subtracted, well, you can see why a good full-time job is of critical importance. For me, I had to move in with my sister for several months before I was able to get a good-enough job to get a place on my own. While that arrangement had some advantages, I also had zero personal space, and zero disposable income.

Dads often give up because it feels like the deck is stacked against them. The money, the courts, the ex-wife, all want the dad to pay, and when he can’t pay (due to illness or layoffs) the court doesn’t care, the $2,000 is still due each month. No matter how careful you were when you set up your savings or retirement accounts, no matter what you make, that first paycheck to the ex-wife becomes a painful reminder of what a crappy deal you just got.

I’m not saying it’s easy for moms. Divorce is difficult for everyone. But the days when “moms were the best nurturers in the family” are long gone. In fact, my ex was not very nurturing at all. I was the breakfast-get-the-kids-to-school dad. That was me. She either slept in, or was doing her makeup and clothes for hours before leaving on some mysterious job interview, or business opportunity. That she made little more than $15,000 a year for the last few years of our marriage was fine, we made an arrangement, but she was NOT the top nurturer in the family.

Well, Dad, if you can afford it, get a lawyer, no matter the terms of your cooperative divorce, you need representation. Then fight for 50/50 parenting, joint custody, and NO CHILD SUPPORT. Yes, kids are expensive, but they should be equally shared as an expense and as a joy. This 70/30 split is bullshit. It’s demeaning to fathers. And it’s based on a parenting concept from the 50’s. Sure it makes it easier on the courts if everyone just goes with the plan. But don’t. If you want the time with your kids, fight for it.

Maybe it’s too late for me. Fighting my ex-wife for 50/50 custody would now be more upsetting to the kids. The benefit now, as they are teenagers is different. A lot of parenting teenagers is being a hotel and a taxi service. That’s okay, that’s the age they are. But as a parent, there are better things I could spend my time doing. Sure, I want my kids 50/50. It’s what I argued for when we first started divorce discussions. But in Texas, in 2010, I was likely to lose my court case. Today, I am told, you have a fighting chance, if you want 50/50. You should go for it.